Hi IluvTTATT,
Good questions!
IluvTTATT said- I am a fading JW who has become Agnostic... I still believe in "God" and "Jesus," but I simply cannot explain to people why I believe in them. I just do.
Hate to be the bearer of bad news here, but according to the accepted definitions for describing belief in deities, if you self-identify as someone who still believes in God, you're a theist (and agnostic would say they don't know, since there's not enough evidence on which to make a decision). Your inability to explain the basis of your belief has NOTHING to do with it, only what you report that you believe....
You're raising some good objections about God's existence, but I'm skipping them to get to the evo stuff...
IluvTTATT said- It seems logical to me to separate Evolution and Abiogenesis, as they are two different topics altogether. A lot of churches and faiths have gone completely on the "we accept Evolution, but not Abiogenesis" bandwagon. "Evolution," the way I understand it, is just changes and changes and changes until one species becomes another species...
Actually, evo is defined as changes in the gene pool over time; you don't even have to get a new species (a process called 'speciation') for evolution to occur. In fact, you could have individuals with an identical ourward appearance (phenotype), and as long as one has a slightly-different set of genes, you have evolution. You can often see evidence for evolution in humans with your very own eyes, with different outward appearances of humanity causing the outward expressions of their different genotypes.
IluvTTATT said- 1. If evolution says that only the best survive, and we humble humans, self-named Homo Sapiens Sapiens, are the most intelligent species on this planet, why aren't we the ONLY species?
Yeah, evo doesn't say only the best survive (AKA survival of the fittest): that's a popular saying, but it's completely misleading. Instead, evo says that only those who are sufficiently adapted to survive in their environment survive! It's much less challeging than people think.
Fact is, even the terribly-maladapted who somehow manage to hang on for dear life to survive to pass on their genes to offspring do so, since that lends the genetic variability upon which natural selection may select from within the gene pool. Why does there need to be variability in the gene pool? Conditions change in the environment, and perhaps a trait that was a burden for the organism and actually had negative survival value under a certain condition might code for a trait that would provide the organism (and hence, the species) a survival benefit after a change in the environment occurs.
IluvTTATT said- 2. What's next, after humans?
We ARE the dominant species on the planet at the moment, and as we learn more about evo and genetics, we have the ability to effect its course (and already do, via medicine).
Of course, we think small mammals filled a niche that was vacated by extinction of large dinosaurs millions of years ago (after a meteor struck the Yucatan), allowing for homo sapiens to emerge as the dominant species on the Planet. And provided we don't wipe ourselves out via our stupidity via nuke proliferation and war, who knows where homo sapiens will end up?
(And if we do commit hari-kari via nuke war, I'm putting my $$$ on the cockroaches being poised to take over control, since they're resiliant to radiation poisoning).
IluvTTATT said- 3. Has actual evolution, i.e. the changes accumulating sufficiently to make ANOTHER species, been observed? If so, where? I would think that the smaller the species/the faster time to reproduce, the better chances to actually observe this.
You're right that it takes a REALLY long time for speciation to occur (over many generations), and hence why researchers use fruit flies and even better, bacteria.
Of the top of my head, we can see speciation in the process by looking at say, dogs (via artificial selection), eg a chihuahua and a great dane are essentially reproductively isolated from each other (due to their great size differential, and the difficulty in mating!) and a result of having their gene pools reproductively separated from the other, in essence they're unlikely to successfully reproduce "in the wild" (if allowed a chance).
Horses, donkeys, and mules also the result of splitting apart, where sterile offspring often result. Speciation has been observed in some species of insects like mosquitos over the past century and a half, eg:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Underground_mosquito
Adam